Winner-take-all is taken out of the picture.
Once Margaret Thatcher worked out a deal with Ronald Reagan to let go of greater market regulations, the rest of the European Economic Community got hijacked. This caused both immediate and delayed reactions to occur on mainland Europe. Neo-libertarian ideals were put on a pedestal in the EU beyond its common social-democratic culture; profits started moving into the ‘right’ hands. The ‘left‘ hands were left with much less than before.
Today, the first signals are coming in that the EU is moving towards its more normal social-democratic roots. Talks about having the big companies and the rich pay a greater share to combat current woes in the EU due to Covid and the war in Ukraine are followed up by linking minimum wage increases to increases seen with wages for the median range of society. The signals are clear. The social-democratic society is re-emerging.
- Neo-libertarians are relegated to the side more and more.
While the UK did move more toward an egalitarian society over the years, most likely because of being in the EU, it is going to be interesting to watch if the Brits will ramp up giving benefits to the rich now.
There is no real economic benefit for the UK to become the best social-democratic nation of Europe; they have to play an economic game that is exactly removed from where the EU is going. They have to try to attract as many investors as possible (especially from the EU), which means they have to give more of the profits to the investors than to their own bottom segments of society.
The squeeze is definitively on, or there will have been no reason for the Brits to have exited the EU. They must deliver all they can give to their rich and to foreign investors to keep themselves afloat. Expect London to keep booming, expect the rest of England to become less well-off. To keep ahead of the game, the gamble is innovation in areas exactly where the others are stalling. If enough investors spend their Euros in the UK, the average Brit may benefit. Though definitively not the bottom segment of society.
The UK was already the most-stratified class society of Europe, the Indian caste society of Europe. Do not expect it to become more egalitarian; it is simply not…
